ORGANIZATIONAL MEETINGS - FORMATS AND INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS

Managers spend a great deal of time in meetings and the results of tho se meetings (decisions, shared understandings, action plans) are criti cal to organizational success. Despite this investment, organizational meetings remain understudied in structure and function. The purpose o f this study is to provide additional knowledge regarding how groups u se information in the course of meetings employing different formats. Based on observations of meetings within 35 different organizations: ( a) forum meetings represented the most common meeting format, followed by round-robin and announcements meetings, (b) the use of formal mech anisms for storing and distributing information (agendas, supporting d ocuments) was found to vary by meeting format, and (c) the availabilit y and use of meeting technologies was limited. Implications for system s development and future research are discussed.